Have you ever met someone who made such an indelible impression that you simply cannot forget him or her? Prentice Herman Polk, the Tuskegee Institute photographer, was such a person. While others had endearing names for him or called him "P.H.," I simply called him Mr. Polk.

It was a warm spring day early in March of 1984 when my sister, Marguerite, and I arrived on the campus of Tuskegee Institute, now University. I was there on an assignment to interview P. H. Polk and to begin the preliminary research for an exhibition of his work planned for the Smithsonian Institution's Anacostia Museum. The visit was a nostalgic journey into our family's past since my sister and my eldest brother, Victor, were born at Tuskegee Institute. After getting settled in our room at Dorothy Hall (Tuskegee's oldest guest house and, in his later years, the home of Dr. George Washington Carver), we went off to Tuskegee town, rented a car, and found our way to 711 Washington Avenue, the home of the irrepressible Mr. P. H. Polk. Neither of us could have expected, nor were we prepared for, the afternoon visit that awaited us.

We pulled up in front of a modest one-story bungalow with uncut grass, a gravel walkway, and a ramp that led to the very unassuming front door. Thinking little of the ramp at the time, we knocked at the door and were welcomed by a warm and friendly voice that called out, "the latch is open, come on in." Surprised at the greeting since no one had mentioned Mr. Polk's disability, only then did we become aware of the small, copper colored man with wire-rimmed eyeglasses who was seated in a wheel chair. Almost as soon as I noticed that he had lost a leg to diabetes, it seemed that the chair faded into the background. For after my sister and I were seated, I was immediately drawn into and captivated by his nearly non-stop animated speech, his zest for life, and a smile that quickly disarmed the unsuspecting visitor.

After the discovery of him in the late 1970s and early 1980s by photographers, museums and galleries, print journalists, and other media types, P.H. Polk became a popular subject for interview-seeking scholars. I was just one of many who found their way to Washington Avenue and paid a visit to this small man with the unconquerable spirit. The consummate teacher of his craft, Mr. Polk skillfully guided the discussion. It quickly became apparent that he had been interviewed many, many times before. As a historian and a trained observer, I was prepared for the interview with salient questions, several of which became unnecessary once Mr. Polk began to speak. He was comfortable with himself and his subject, and answered many of my well-phrased queries even before I asked them.

Perhaps among the last to be granted an interview, like a school girl, I was an attentive listener and hung on to his every word. My training in conducting oral history interviews had not prepared me for a subject like Mr. Polk. He knew what he wanted to tell me and, in his own unique and intimate style, he told it. Not in the least bit restrained by either my profession or the prestigious institution I represented, Mr. Polk was on his own turf and enjoyed himself immensely. My sister sat quietly as she observed the ambiance of Mr. Polk's living quarters. The environment at once surrounded us with the presence, aura, and mystique of the artist and the images of the "old-timers" about whom he loved to talk. Every inquiry I made about a picture brought forth a mirthful chuckle followed by a vintage Polk anecdotal story. Not simply flat images framed in his view finder, captured on film, and printed on paper, these were pictures of sure enough flesh-and-blood people. He spoke of them as beloved friends.

The one-hour appointment that began at two o'clock stretched on into the late afternoon and soon it was time to return to Tuskegee's campus for supper. Characteristic of Dr. Booker T. Washington's Institute, punctuality is a must for all who visit. Hospitality there is so genuine that no one feels hurried. Yet, do hasten and be on time! But how does one disengage Mr. Polk, who is enlivened by the interest shown in him and his work?

Even in his somewhat unkempt, cluttered, and very cramped quarters there is much that Mr. Polk must show, explain, and share with the inquiring visitor. The visit would not be complete without a trip through the attic to see the rows of homemade wooden bins overflowing with negative envelopes. The names of his sitters were impressive and the dates spanned nearly half a century. They represented his life's work. But user beware. Polk's informality was genuine. It was apparent in the handwritten notations on his negative envelopes (he did not have a print file). For example, with a form of shorthand, Mr. Polk reduced his identification of educator Dr. Nannie Helen Burroughs to "Nan" Burroughs. Whether he encountered a client or dignitary who sat for a portrait, a visitor asking for the recipe for his famed, slow-cooked barbecued ribs, or a new devotee requesting an interview, Polk's adeptness for putting people at ease was a skill he had mastered.

With reluctance, my sister and I made our way through a breezeway to the front door to say our "good-byes." Speaking non-stop, P. H. Polk was close behind in his wheel chair. "Did I show you my studio?" he asked. "Did I tell you that one of my cameras is on display at the Carver Museum?" "Girlie, you know I knew Dr. Carver real well?" By then, the formality of Mrs. Hutchinson had faded. We had become friends, and I was "girlie." Extending the courtesy due him, I still addressed him as Mr. Polk. And that was all right with me, for I wanted to visit him again and get to know him better. But, alas! There was more.

Just when I thought I had it all together and was about to leave, Mr. Polk, a great raconteur and joke teller with mischief in his eyes, asked, "Did I tell you the joke about the Hen and Pig in Chicago?" Of course he had not, and I was not going to offend him by refusing to stay a bit longer to hear the story. Obviously, its telling gave him great satisfaction. I felt certain that he had told it many times before, because even before he reached the punch line, "they didn't want to end up on a Chicago diner breakfast plate as ham and eggs," he was engulfed in and enjoying his own infectious laughter. My sister and I left Mr. Polk's home with a sense of wonder. This had been an extraordinary afternoon and a most unorthodox interview. But it was characteristic P. H. Polk!

I was unable to schedule a second appointment or to see Mr. Polk again. The unaffected, diminuitive man who had conquered his wheel chair, made it enigmatic to the visitor, and who good-naturedly called himself a "one-eyed, nearly blind photographer," had an appointment with his physician and with destiny. Mr. Polk had not conquered his diabetes and would soon lose his one "good" leg. Before the year was over, his courageous battle with life would end. But as I left him that warm March afternoon, he called after me in a cheerful voice, "You come back, you hear." And as an afterthought he said, "I was born in one century, have lived mostly through a second, and I promise you I'm goin' to live to see the next one." He wanted to be remembered as the man who had lived in three centuries. I recall laughing and saying, "Mr. Polk, I am going to hold you to that promise!" Sadly, all promises cannot be kept. By the end of December 1984, P.H. Polk had died.

Who was P. H. Polk? Who was this man with the glimmer in his eyes who caressed his subjects with his camera? Observing his form in the wheel chair, one would notice that for a fleeting moment he bore a resemblance to a seated Mohandas "Mahatma" Gandhi. Polk was small in stature with a reddish hue like the Alabama land from which he came. I think it was his wire rimmed eyeglasses and sensitive but steady gaze that gave him the Gandhi-like appearance. As much as Gandhi believed in his cause to liberate the nation of India from England, Polk believed in the power of his camera to give all of his subjects an unspoken dignity.

What Polk saw through the lens of his camera had a unifying influence that made many from diverse walks of life seek him out and say, "Mr. Polk, take my picture!" And as Mr. Polk himself would tell you, "there were some people I just had to make a picture of. I would offer them just a few cents to sit for me." Among these images of the humble folk whose pictures Mr. Polk just had to make were The Pipe Smoker, The Boss, Charles Turner, and an untitled view of an old man holding a book. About these photographs Polk said, "All of these pictures,...when I made them, I didn't have money....I made them for the love of it. For the innerself. I made them to please me....I saw those people. I was interested in them. They intrigued me." One might re-title them Perseverance, Arrogance, Humility, and The Unlettered. Polk not only gave them dignity, he gave them love, respect, and immortality. He gave them what Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. later called a sense of "somebodiness." In all of those humble and wizened faces with furrowed brows, or gnarled hands rugged and roughened from old age or hard work, Polk saw the reflection of his people; people he had known and loved in his hometown of Bessemer, Alabama. And in those faces he saw and felt what the poet Langston Hughes felt in the depths of his soul when he penned the following lines for his 1926 collection of verse, The Weary Blues:

The night is beautiful,
So the faces of my people.

The stars are beautiful,
So the eyes of my people.

Beautiful, also, is the sun.
Beautiful, also, are the souls of my people.

In fact, when Hughes was compiling the verse for his first published book of poems in 1926, P. H. Polk was being drawn back to Tuskegee, where he began to make and then compile his genre prints, a collection now known and celebrated as Polk's "Old Characters." What his contemporary, James Van Der Zee, gave to New York's Harlem, P. H. Polk gave to Southern Black Belt communities. Each helped to energize, define, and capture the souls of his people. And like Van Der Zee and C. M. Battey before him, P. H. Polk inspired young minds like Chester Higgins, Jr. to see and appreciate beauty in the faces and humble lives of the people and in the common place.

Clothed in the hand-me-down dresses of his sisters (he was the only boy in the family), a young Prentice Polk with a stick in his hand could only draw images in the dusty road of his racially segregated community; images that he created in his mind. He had wanted to become an artist, but knew no one who was. His love of colors, shapes, and textures, he said, came from scraps of fabric and remnants from fashions his mother had sewn. A self-taught seamstress, she created clothing for the ladies of the evening in Bessemer's red light district. She could see a fine garment in a store window, go home, and with her creative bent and discerning eye make a pattern from any paper available to "run up" dresses for her unusual clientele. With a son's pride, Polk would tell you, "Oh yea, she could sew a fine seam. And she made hats, too!" From common folk, Polk never lost the common touch. Still, he was the impeccably dressed man with the highly polished shoes, who, when a student at Tuskegee, cleaned his Panama hat with white shoe polish and dipped his fingers in developing solution so the girls would say, "Oh-oh-oh--you're a photographer!"

The son of Jacob Prentice Polk and Christine Romelia Ward Polk, Prentice Herman Polk was born in Bessemer, Alabama, on November 25, 1898. One of four children, his sisters were Mayme, Freddie, and Georgia. Polk's parents had moved from Anniston, Alabama, to Bessemer in 1880 in search of a better life in the new industrial city. The senior Polk was a laborer in a coal mine, while Christine picked cotton at a nearby plantation. According to Polk, "She was working in the cotton fields one day....She looked up and said, 'Lord, is this what you put me on this earth to do?' A few months later she came across an advertisement to learn how to become a seamstress by correspondence." Teaching herself to read and sew, Christine Polk acquired skills and developed a "can do" attitude that she passed on to her children. Jacob Polk contracted black lung disease working in coal mines. In 1909, he died at age thirty-eight. But he left his only son the legacy of family pride and industry.

Compulsory education for Bessemer's black pupils ended at age thirteen. Determined that her only son would not go to work in the coal mines, Christine saw education as his means to salvation. As Herman Polk, he completed the fifth grade in Bessemer, then as a boarding student he was enrolled in the fledgling Tuggle Institute on Enon Ridge. He said it was the boys' band that made him want to go there. The school stressed discipline, basic education, and religion--all ingredients for strong character building. After three years Polk left the school to help his mother. He worked pressing clothes in a black tailor shop and earned twenty-one dollars a month.

Learning that the Institute would not turn away any student earnestly seeking an education, nearing eighteen years of age, and adopting his father's given name, Prentice Herman Polk enrolled on September 16, 1916 as a night school student at Tuskegee Institute. He worked eight to ten hours a day, with two hours for academic studies. Money earned was placed in an escrow account, to be applied to tuition when he enrolled in the day school program at a later date.